Before You Say Goodbye

Chapter 14

Bowie died the following Tuesday, in the evening. His death did not allow Autumn the time she felt she needed to really make it up to him, even though he’d sworn, whenever he’d caught her agonising over what she’d done, that things were fine between them. If he’d had thirty years more to keep telling her that he had forgiven her, she was quite sure that she would never have believed him completely.

He knew he was running out of time and asked Autumn if she would find a way to take him away from the house for a while before it was too late. His chest pains were not as drastic, but they were present almost all the time and his breathing was heavy and raspy. He pivoted wildly between believing he had a mass close to his chest and that he’d caught an infection his body couldn’t fight off because of his weakened immune system. Autumn asked him which was the better scenario and Bowie meekly told her neither. They cried together for a while, then he proposed they get out of the house. He wanted the chance to go somewhere different with her, he said. She agreed to take him to London, and they woke in the early hours of the morning to leave the house before anybody could stop them, taking the wheelchair they knew Maddie had in the back of her car from her care-working days in case he needed it later. They smoked cannabis as they strolled very slowly, hand in swinging hand, to the train station, pushing the wheelchair along as they went, his left hand on the left handle, her right hand on the right. On the train, Bowie spoke sheepishly to Autumn about his brother.

“Marley tried to talk to me about what happened,” he said. “He came to me yesterday and tried to apologise.”

Autumn nodded, fiddling with her coat. She wasn’t sure what he expected her to say. “I told him I didn’t want to hear it,” he said. An uncomfortable silence fell between them. She stared out of the window and worked hard to force the image of Marley’s face, in ecstasy above hers, from her mind. The image haunted her, day and night, even more so whenever she saw him, which was, at least, less frequently, since he was making himself exceptionally scarce.

For a talented actor, Marley was doing a tremendously bad job of pretending that nothing had happened between them. He spoke to her only when he really had to and openly scoffed at the things she said. One evening over dinner, he’d ploughed his way through such an extraordinary amount of alcohol that Ben had tried to take a bottle of rum away from him.

“I think you’ve had enough, son.”

“Leave me alone, Ben,” he’d said, seething, and yanked the bottle out of reach. None of the Whittle children ever called either of their parents by their first names. The table erupted in outrage. Bowie was so incensed by his twin’s disrespect that Autumn had to grab him by the waistband of his jeans, fearing he might throw himself across the table to attack Marley, even as weak as he was. Emma berated both boys and they all finished their meal in silence. Marley took himself to bed immediately afterwards.

Autumn and Bowie let the others discover their absence with a note left on the kitchen table, and answered Emma’s frantic phone calls as they climbed cautiously up out of the Tube station. They were fine, they assured her. They just needed some time to themselves. Yes, they’d be careful. Yes, they would call if they needed anything. Yes, they’d check in with her every hour or so. They’d be home later that evening, and, yes, they said, they loved her too.

They’d planned to grab breakfast on the way into the city, but Bowie didn’t much feel like eating, so they bought two cappuccinos and took them along the towpath. They sat together, Bowie in the wheelchair and Autumn on the grass with her head in his lap, and watched the world go by. They found deserted alleyways whenever he wanted to smoke to ease his pain. Autumn kissed him ardently whenever the moment took her, and he dragged her onto his lap whenever he could, burying his head into her hair and inhaling her perfume. They drank cheap red wine out of a brown paper bag and bought ridiculously decadent cupcakes at a tiny, plant-based café they found in King’s Cross. Bowie gave Autumn his icing, the only bit she ever actually wanted, and she gave him her sponge.

They sat in front of the gates at Buckingham Palace, mimicking the members of the royal family. They fed pigeons in Hyde Park. They waited fifteen minutes or more to hear Big Ben chime five times. They talked about calling Larry Ross and asking him if they could have two tickets to watch his show that evening, but Bowie said that he was too tired. Autumn knew he was lying. The show had been raucously reviewed, but Bowie hadn’t wanted to hear anything about it. It was just too painful.

“Shall we get a hotel?” he asked.

“We don’t have any stuff” She looked at him, raising her eyebrows.

“Who needs stuff?”

They checked into the first place they found with a vacancy. It was a basic box room with barely any furniture. They brought pizza and sweets with them to eat, and Bowie asked for a room on the top floor so they could smoke out of the windows without being caught. Autumn watched the sun begin to sink over the rooftops and wrote notes for the final edit of her book on the hotel’s headed paper, while Bowie slept off his exhaustion. She woke him up as the sun was setting, knowing he’d be upset if she let him sleep away their precious time together.

For reasons they’d never know, they managed to make love. Somehow, he’d been able to lay back as Autumn brought him twice to climax before things went back to the way they’d been recently.

“How are you doing this?” he’d murmured halfway through the second time.

“Magic,” she’d whispered, kissing him.

Afterwards, they lay wrapped in one another, dreaming up the future they might have had if things had been different. They talked of the cottages in the countryside, orchards and vegetable patches, two rescue pigs, a flock of chickens, and the mongrel they’d adopt. Autumn told him that their musings were hurting her heart, but Bowie asked her to indulge him a little longer. It would all only ever exist for him in his imagination, he said. Couldn’t she allow him that? She nodded, and they dreamed up winter nights beside a real log fire, shared pans of homemade mulled wine, a library stacked so high that Autumn would need a ladder to reach the books on the very top shelf, and three kids, who loved their parents as fiercely as Bowie loved Emma and Ben.

Autumn had to make a confession. “I’m awful with kids.”

“You’ll be all right if you ever have your own,” he said.

“Perhaps if I had you by my side. We could parent ten children and still manage to give them everything they wanted. But without you? With anyone else . . .”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. She was determined not to let tears ruin what she was quite sure would be their last night alone together.

“You’ll find someone else,” he said. Every now and then, Bowie would throw her a line like this. He was curious to know where she might go and what she would do once he no longer tied her to England, but Autumn couldn’t bring herself to think about it. She knew her lack of willingness to discuss it made him worry about her, but she couldn’t help it. She hated him speaking of the life she would live when he was gone.

“I’ll never meet anyone like you,” she said. She instantly regretted saying it. He was quiet, thinking for a moment, and she anticipated his answer anxiously.

“Perhaps you already have,” he said musingly.

Autumn knew that part of Bowie liked to believe she had fallen in love with Marley. She was possessed by a desperation to correct him almost all day every day, but had so far chosen to respect his request that they should pretend nothing untoward had happened between his lover and his brother — up to now. This was the first time he’d brought it up and it was her chance to set him straight.

“I haven’t,” she said. “And I never will.”

Autumn was cautious. Their day together had been perfect so far, and the chances of her clumsy mouth ruining it were high, so she thought carefully before she spoke again.

“We made a mistake,” she added, in barely more than a whisper. Bowie’s reply was delivered softly and with caution.

“I think Marley was meant to meet you first that night.”

She sighed and swallowed hard. She was desperate for him to have complete faith in her again.

“Please don’t, Bowie,” she said, hearing the words come out of her mouth with surprising strength. “You don’t even believe in any of that stuff.”

Philosophical as they were, they’d talked frequently of fate and destiny, ghosts and the afterlife, and Bowie didn’t have the slightest belief in any of it. When he died, he was adamant that he would cease to exist. She had not been sent by something divine to give him a reason to live longer, as his sisters and his mother frequently suggested. Her appearance in his life had been nothing more than a romantic coincidence and he’d insisted, until now, that their meeting had been a simple, happy accident.

“Or perhaps I was meant to bring you together? Maybe that’s the real reason it all happened this way,” he continued, ignoring her. She pushed him gently away. He rolled onto his back, studying the ceiling.

“You’ve both grown so much these last few months. If you’d met that night, you’d have been over before you even started. Instead, this way, you’ve fallen in love.”

“He’s not in love with me,” she said.

“He’s the male version of you.” He pressed on as though she hadn’t said anything. “Haven’t I always said that?”

“And I’m not in love with him.” Her heart fluttered unhappily. She felt uneasy. Her protesting made her feel uncomfortable. “And even if I were, do you really think we would ever do that to you?” Saying it made her conscience feel a little clearer somehow.

“Do what to me?” he asked. He hitched himself up onto his elbow and leaned over, holding her face in his hand. His fingers shook a little as he spoke. “Autumn, I’ll be dead.”

His candour made her weep. Bowie had been unable to talk of his impending death for a number of weeks now, and, even in the months before, he’d only ever mentioned it if it were absolutely unavoidable. He had come to terms with it, and she knew what that meant. He was really going to leave her. She grabbed his hand and pressed it against her cheek, pulling him towards her. They wrapped their arms around one another and cried.

“Please let me say something to you,” he said. “You’ll hate it, but it’s really important.”

She nodded, resolving to let him tell her whatever it was he felt he needed to, without interruption, even if she didn’t like what he had to say. It was the very least that she could do for him.

“You can protest all you want, but I know Marley better than you do. Better than anybody. I know him better than he knows himself. He loves you and if you ever find yourself loving him too, then be together. Please. Ignore anyone who tells you that it’s wrong. You could have sixty years or more together and you have my blessing. It won’t take away from these months we’ve had. If there is an afterlife, which there isn’t, but if there is, I’ll be partying with the greatest musicians of all time. I’ll be waiting to hear about all the fun you had without me. I’ll be glad you found comfort in each other. So, do whatever it is that makes your heart happy. Don’t give any thought to what I might hypothetically think about it. Promise me.”

She sobbed into his chest and told him that she promised. She was surprised to find that she meant it.

“Can we make this an official rule?” he murmured. She nodded. “Are you sure? You know that those rules can’t ever be broken? They’re binding.”

She laughed softly, in spite of herself.

“What are we up to?” he asked.

“Six,” she said.

“Rule Number Six.” He kissed her cheek tenderly. “Do what makes you happy.”

“I love you,” she whispered, holding him tighter still.

“I love you too,” he said.

* * *

The next day, his brothers picked them up from the train station and helped Bowie back into his bed, and he never got out again. When she looked back on their charmed day in London, the third best day they’d ever spent together (after their cinema date and the day they’d spent in rehearsals at the theatre), Autumn knew that Bowie had poured every last bit of strength he’d had into their little trip, and it was a comfort to her.

That afternoon was the worst of her life, without question. Bowie had exhausted himself and his body was unforgiving in making sure he knew it. He lay rigid with pain, crying out for help from anyone who would listen. His legs were in agony, his back was sore, his head was pounding. It hurt when he moved, and it hurt when he didn’t. Breathing was painful and thinking about anything except for how much pain he was in was impossible. He kept clutching his temples and telling them over and over again that it was in his head, he could feel it, he was going to forget who he was and who they were. He was in equal parts hurting and terrified, and it was horrifying to behold. They took it in turns to sit beside him, holding his hands when he could bear their touch, trying to remind him that the pain always passed eventually, but she knew that none of them believed he would get better this time, any more than she did. The cannabis was no longer working and nor were their words of comfort. There was something different in the way he writhed. He was still adamant he did not want professional palliative care and insisted nobody could look after him in this vulnerable state better than they could. Maddie was using every single scrap of knowledge she had about end-of-life care to try to make him comfortable, but nothing really made him feel any better. Autumn knew that it was finally time to say goodbye.

In the early evening, he started begging them to kill him. He had been howling incessantly for hours. It was torturous to listen to. Autumn closed her eyes and tried her hardest to ignore his pleading.

“Just do it and it will all be over,” he said, utterly desperate to convince her. “Autumn, please.”

She shook her head, but could not look at him.

“Autumn, help me. Please.” He gasped the words over and over and over again.

In the end, she could bear it no longer and had to leave him by himself. She was dangerously close to helping her boyfriend end his life and she needed time to think without his desperate interruptions. She marched out of their room, past his vacant and devastated parents. They were sitting on the sofa, listening to him scream. They stood up and went in to him, as she’d known they would. Autumn stepped outside, taking her helplessness and the rage it inspired out on the front door by slamming it behind her with enormous force. She leaned back against it, caressing it apologetically.

“Rough night?” asked Marley. He was sitting on the steps. She hadn’t seen him in her turmoil. She nodded dolefully and sat down beside him. He lit a cigarette, holding it out for her to take.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

“You’re welcome,” he said. There was genuine warmth to his tone for the first time since their night together. He was trying to tell her that their ever-present awkwardness was not appropriate tonight. They stared absently out across the garden. It was starting to rain and she could see fog in the nearest fields. She willed it to creep over her. It would soak her irritated skin and hide her from the rest of the world. It would give her sanctuary from the overwhelming temptation she felt to help Bowie end his life. She knew that his continued existence depended on her establishing several reasons why it would be wrong to end his suffering firmly in her fragile mind. She was sure that the absence of his screaming would help. But even in the silence, she could think of only one. It was illegal. That was all she had left.

“We have to help him,” she whispered. Autumn had long believed that legality was not an indicator of morality. It was legal to do lots of things she did not agree with and illegal to do many things she felt should be allowed. Bowie could no longer bear his pain and he should be freed from it if that was what he wanted. If he were a dog, they’d have ended his suffering weeks ago.

“How?” Marley asked, his voice drenched in caution.

“We have to find a way to help him go,” Autumn said decisively, with more confidence than she was feeling.

Marley reacted violently, leaping away from her as if she’d slapped his face. He was shaking his head combatively.

“No, Autumn, no, no, no.”

“Marley, we have to listen to him,” she said.

“We can’t,” he said. “I can’t.”

“Marley—”

“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?” he said. “Have you really thought about it? Really? Bowie’s my whole fucking life. You’re asking me to destroy myself.”

“Do you know how selfish you sound?” She stood up to confront him. “Can you hear yourself?”

“I can’t do it,” he said.

“You wouldn’t have to,” she said. “You just have to let us. Maddie and I.”

“I can’t stand by and watch either.”

“Then we will,” she said firmly. “Say your goodbyes and leave him.”

Marley moved towards her, protesting, but whatever he’d been about to say was interrupted by a high-pitched, strangled cry from Bowie’s room. Marley slouched down onto his haunches and held his face in his hands. His shoulders shook.

“Is this the way you want him to go?” she asked him, his torso heaving with distress.

“W-what’s the alternative?” he murmured into his palms. “What do we need to do?”

“Maddie will know how,” Autumn said. “And then it’ll all be over for him, all the fear, all the pain. He won’t have to feel any of it anymore. And that’s all he wants now. It’s all he’s wanted for months.”

Marley lost his balance, collapsing into a sitting position on the tiled floor of the porch. He drew his knees up to his chest and turned his head to sob hysterically into the sleeve of his shirt. Her heart ached for him. She sat down beside him, pulling his shuddering body into hers. They held on to one another, listening to Bowie’s pleas of distress, as the fog rolled in around them.

* * *

Together, Autumn and Marley told Bowie their plan, plied him with vodka to calm him down, and convinced the family that they should all get some sleep. Bowie had been in the same level of distress for many hours now, they said. If it was going to get worse, it already would have. Autumn and Marley promised to come and get them if Bowie needed them.

When Maddie came to bid her brother goodnight, Autumn caught her eye. She stared at her meaningfully until she was sure she understood. Maddie nodded gently and left. She went to bed with the others, but met Autumn and Marley ten minutes later on the stairs.

“I’m not sure I can do this,” she whispered.

“Don’t say that, Maddie.” Autumn grimaced. “We’ve already told him that we will.”

“I always said I’d never do it unless everyone agreed,” she said.

“They’ll never agree,” Marley said. His voice was low and hoarse. “Mum and Dad will never agree, never. We have to do this without them.”

“We need you, Maddie,” Autumn said. “You’re the only one who knows anything about his drugs. We can’t risk this going wrong.”

They held hands as they filed into the bedroom. Bowie was sleeping, but his eyes fluttered open when he heard them come in. He smiled when he saw Maddie was with them and reached out to hold her hand.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Bowie—”

“I’m ready, Maddie,” he answered before she could say any more. “I’m tired.”

Maddie nodded, turning to the two of them. “You’d better say your goodbyes.” She walked unsteadily to the doorway. Autumn let Marley step forward. He sat beside his brother, bereft. Bowie looked at his twin with wonder in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he said. Marley smiled weakly, taking Bowie’s hand.

“I don’t think I can stay,” he said.

“That’s OK,” Bowie said. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Forgive yourself, Marley? Please?”

Marley tried to speak, but Maddie re-entered the room. Autumn willed him to say whatever it was he wanted to say anyway, but Marley clamped his mouth shut, instead leaning down to kiss Bowie on his forehead, nodding gently as he did. When it felt as though an age had passed, Bowie pushed him, firmly but tenderly, away. Marley loitered at the bottom of the bed. Autumn stepped forward.

“Hi,” she said stupidly. It made him smile.

“Hi,” he said. She didn’t know what else to say. No combination of words would ever convey the enormity of what she wanted him to know. She threw herself on him instead.

“I’ll love you for ever,” she heard herself say.

“I know you will,” he said.

He let her lay with him for a few minutes, then urged her gently to go. She moved to stand beside Marley. Bowie gestured for Maddie to come to him. In her hands, she carried boxes of sleeping pills, numerous boxes of pain relief tablets, and a cup of clear liquid. She placed them on Bowie’s bedside table and perched on the side of the bed beside her brother. She was crying silent tears. They belied her composure.

“Don’t thank me again,” she said before Bowie could speak.

“Sorry.” He stroked her arm. “You won’t get into trouble, will you?”

“No, darling, but you need to take them yourself. And I think you should write a note. I’ll take the blame for leaving too many pills lying around.”

“Please don’t do that.” Bowie shook his head. “Mum and Dad will never forgive you if they think you’ve had anything to do with this. Promise me you won’t. Tell them I’ve been stockpiling them and I took them myself. Promise me.”

“OK.” Maddie soothed him. “We will, Bowie, I promise.”

“What will happen?” he said. “What will it do to my body?”

“It won’t do you any good to know that,” she said softly.

“Will it hurt?” he asked. Maddie shook her head.

“You should take these first, then these, then drink this vodka down. You’re going to feel drowsy pretty quickly, so you’re going to have to do it all as fast as you can. It’s an overdose, but the sleeping pills will knock you out.”

Bowie nodded, his eyes flitting fearfully to the pill packets. Maddie kissed the back of his hand.

“It isn’t going to hurt,” she whispered. He nodded again and swallowed, turning to look at Marley, pacing the floorboards restlessly.

“Marley,” Bowie said softly. Marley stopped and looked at him. “If you’re going to leave, then you should go now.”

Marley walked to the door, then stopped. His face crumpled. He looked at Autumn, then at Maddie, and finally at his twin brother.

“I’m staying,” he said.

He strode determinedly towards the bed and threw himself down on it with childlike abandon. He scooted closer to Bowie and helped him to sit up. He ran his hand lovingly over his brother’s face and kissed him on the top of his head. Bowie smiled and let his head fall heavily against Marley’s shoulder, scribbling a note on a notepad Maddie had given him and tossing it onto the bedside cabinet when he was done. Once they were settled, they looked at Autumn. Maddie held her hand out to her, gently pulling her towards the bed.

They looked between each other, each of them certain someone else would put a stop to this, but nobody did.

Bowie swallowed a handful of sleeping tablets first, then dropped the painkillers onto his tongue as if he were eating sweets. He was sinking into drowsiness in just a few minutes. He held on to the three of them, repeatedly asking them to tell his family how much he loved them, and promising their crying faces that they would be all right. As he slipped into unconsciousness, Maddie promised him, in answer to the fear in his eyes, that he wouldn’t feel any additional pain. It would all be all right now, she whispered. She waited until he was sleeping soundly before she let herself sob. They sat beside him and waited.

“How long will it take?” Marley asked, cradling Bowie’s head where it had fallen against his chest.

“I honestly don’t know,” Maddie said.

They lay motionless for half an hour or so. Bowie’s breathing slowed, and then became more ragged. Autumn held his hand tight, allowing herself to hope that Maddie’s plan hadn’t worked. Bowie was, at least physically, still alive, but the grief she felt was already desolating. She was scared stiff. She watched as the rise and fall of his chest grew shallower. Eventually, he let out a deep sighing breath and he never drew in another. Marley stuffed the corner of the bedsheet into his mouth and released a sound like nothing Autumn had ever heard before. She knew it would haunt her for ever.

They wept and wept, and then Autumn and Maddie peeled Bowie from Marley’s arms and laid him on his back in a nest of pillows. He was still warm to the touch. They tucked his bed covers around him with great care and reverence. Marley curled into a ball on the floor, crying out his brother’s name over and over and over again.

“Please, Marley.” Maddie knelt before him and stroked his head tentatively. “Mum and Dad will hear you, and this shouldn’t be how they find out. Please.”

He reached out and grabbed his sister by her arm, pulling her in to clasp her to him. He begged her, in urgent whispers, to kill him too.

“Please. Maddie, please. I can’t do this. Oh God, Bowie. Maddie. Please help me.”

Autumn’s loss was utterly incapacitating. She was unable to do or say anything. She sat on the end of the bed and watched Maddie try to soothe her brother through her own tears, but Marley was adamant that he wanted nothing but to die. Autumn forced herself to speak.

“We should leave him,” she said to Maddie. “Let’s leave him here with Bowie.”

Maddie froze, thinking deeply, and then suddenly relented. She held Marley’s sobbing, quivering form to her chest, told him she hoped that he would make the right decision, and then released him gently. She took Autumn’s hand and pulled her out into the hallway.

“Let’s give him until the morning?” Maddie whispered, her voice hoarse from sobbing. Autumn nodded and they sat side by side on the sofa, staring silently into glasses they’d filled with neat gin. Neither spoke for over an hour.

“I’m glad it’s finally over.” Maddie’s voice shattered the silence. Autumn wasn’t sure where she had been, but was shocked back into the present. Maddie’s words broke her heart. Bowie was really gone.

“Me too.” It was a lie. She was not glad. She would never be glad.

“His suffering has consumed us all for years,” Maddie continued. She was searching for something positive to say. Autumn knew her attempts were futile. There was no silver lining. She resisted the urge to tell Maddie to stop talking.

“I’m glad I was finally able to do something to help him. It doesn’t feel wrong,” she added.

Even in her stupefied state, Autumn knew Maddie was trying to tell her something. She didn’t have the energy to ask her to explain, but managed to raise her head expectantly, bracing herself for what her friend had to say.

“Did Bowie ever tell you that I’m not their biological sister?” she asked. Autumn’s mind went instantly blank. She shook her head. “Dad isn’t actually his dad. His real father left Emma when the twins were only four and Bluebell was two. My mother left Dad for someone else when I was one. Dad met Emma when the twins were seven and Bluebell was five. I don’t remember life before them, but apparently there was one.”

Autumn was blindsided by this revelation and yet, through the fog of confusion and grief, everything made so much sense to her now. Her mind raced through the differences — both in appearance and attitude — between the siblings, Ben’s unwillingness to contradict Emma or to intervene in matters relating to Bowie’s health, and to Marley’s outburst at the dinner table a few nights before, when he’d called Ben by his first name. Bowie’s violent response seemed suddenly justifiable. Autumn felt sad for Ben. It must have been very painful to hear Marley talk like that.

“When Marley called Dad ‘Ben’ the other night, you didn’t react. I felt sure that you knew.”

“I was confused by it, yes,” Autumn said. “But, no, I never knew.”

Maddie smiled meekly.

“When Dad and Mum told me the truth when I was six, I was devastated,” she said. “Bowie, Marley and Bluebell promised me that nobody would ever know, that they would never tell anybody, but I felt sure that they would break their promises when they grew up and fell in love. I guess I was wrong. It was so important to me that I was a legitimate part of this family, that I was as much their sister as Bluebell.”

“He never told me, Maddie.” Autumn listened to Maddie talk about how zealously Ben loved Bowie, Marley and Bluebell. He had never once failed them in his fatherly duties, even when they’d been disrespectful to him. Autumn marvelled at this man, who’d devoted himself to loving his wife’s children with a ferocity that she had never seen from her own father, and at Bowie, who had, as it turned out, understood perfectly well how it felt to have had a dad who didn’t care, but never revealed this to her because that would have meant breaking the promises they’d made as siblings to Maddie.

“I’m so proud to have been his sister, Autumn,” she whispered. Autumn put her arm around her friend.

“And he was so proud to be your brother,” Autumn said.

“We created this life together,” Maddie said. “All of us. We forgot about the people who’d forgotten about us, so we could make ourselves into this incredible family.”

Autumn could barely believe it. Somewhere out there in the night slept the man who’d conceived Bowie and Marley, and he had no idea, nor any desire to know, that at least one of his sons had lost his fight with life tonight.

“It isn’t over,” Maddie added. “It won’t die with Bowie. My parents are terrified you’ll leave us, Autumn. They love you and they don’t want you to leave, but they’ll never tell you because they don’t want you to feel obliged to stay.”

Autumn knew now why Maddie had chosen to disclose their family’s secret. She was afraid that Autumn might leave and she wanted her to know that her family was more opaque than it seemed. For Autumn, pondering what she might do after Bowie died had been too painful, but she had always been fairly certain that she would, in all likelihood, leave the Whittle home as soon as she could. She would run right back to her old life and try to pretend that none of it had ever happened. She didn’t know how she’d be able to get over it any other way. She was ashamed to acknowledge, even now, as she sat conversing calmly with his sister, that she was fighting the urge to bolt from this house, but she couldn’t leave until she knew what Marley’s decision had been. She had to know, for better or worse. Every now and then as they sat, Autumn had to fight an overwhelming urge to rip the bedroom door open. Waiting to know, powerless over the outcome, was excruciating. She felt such sadness for Marley. If he had killed himself, he’d died all by himself. If he hadn’t, he was still all alone in there, with Bowie’s lifeless body beside him. It broke her heart.

* * *

As the sun lit up the hallway with soft morning light, Maddie and Autumn walked, hand in hand, to the bedroom door. Maddie pulled it open tentatively. The medication had moved. Marley was laying on the bed beside his brother. As they stepped fearfully across the floorboards towards him, he turned to look at them. The packets were untouched.

They threw their arms around him, sobbing with relief.